{"id":1141968,"date":"2021-12-22T12:19:46","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T17:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1141968"},"modified":"2021-12-22T12:19:48","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T17:19:48","slug":"rand-pauls-2021-festivus-report-uncovers-52-billion-of-government-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rand-pauls-2021-festivus-report-uncovers-52-billion-of-government-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand Paul\u2019s 2021 \u2018Festivus Report\u2019 Uncovers $52 Billion Of Government Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frand-pauls-2021-festivus-report-uncovers-52-billion-of-government-waste%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1141968&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released his 2021 \u201cFestivus\u201d Report, which detailed a total of $52,598,515,585 in government waste.<\/p>\n<p>Paul is chairman of the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight (ETSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and is on the Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).<\/p>\n<p>This marks Dr. Paul\u2019s and the subcommittee\u2019s seventh edition of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paul.senate.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/page-attachments\/Festivus%20Report%202021_0.pdf\">Festivus Report<\/a>, which the Senator described as a way to \u201calert the American people to how their federal government uses their hard-earned money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Areas of spending are broken down into various sections, including COVID-related spending, Afghanistan, and miscellaneous expenditure. Examples include $11.3 million spent by the USAID on telling the people of Vietnam \u201cto stop burning their trash,\u201d Congress giving the Wilson Center \u2014 which \u201cthrows swanky parties for members of congress\u201d \u2014 $14 million, and over $465,000 granted by the NIH to Reed College of Portland, Oregon, to \u201ccreate a token-based economy where pigeons are taught to gamble with slot machines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHappy Festivus! How can 2021 already be coming to a close? What a year it\u2019s been,\u201d the report begins. \u201cAnd, it\u2019s safe to say that some big changes have occurred since last year\u2019s Festivus Report. Mask mandates, travel restrictions and lock-downs were lifted across many parts of the country. President Biden was inaugurated. Inflation has skyrocketed. The Kardashians finally ended their TV show after 14 years. \u2018Dad bod\u2019 was officially added to Webster\u2019s Dictionary. And how about the Federal government? Well, unsurprisingly, it managed to keep spending money we don\u2019t have on things we don\u2019t need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt seems like just yesterday the national debt was $20 trillion, but now the U.S. has managed to breeze past $28 trillion, spending and wasting more than we ever have,\u201d Sen. Paul told The Daily Wire. \u201cWhile some in Washington insist on recklessly spending your taxpayer dollars, I will continue to shed light on some of the most egregious examples of government waste, and fight against excessive federal spending.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Based on the reported government waste of $52,598,515,585, Sen. Paul pointed out that, with an average taxpayer bill of $15,332, the federal government \u201cwasted the taxes of 3,430,636 people.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is roughly the population of Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; or 50.74 times the size of Senator Paul\u2019s hometown of Bowling Green, KY,\u201d the report noted.<\/p>\n<p>The report stated that $40,316,270,000 (and counting) was wasted on COVID-19, including $4.29 billion in \u201cbad loans out of the Paycheck Protection Program,\u201d as much as $36 billion in \u201cwasted unemployment insurance payments,\u201d and $1.27 million in \u201cCOVID relief funds for students who actually weren\u2019t enrolled\u201d in one Baltimore school.<\/p>\n<p>Miscellaneous wastage amounting to more than $8 billion included $250 million to \u201cbuild border walls in the Middle East and North Africa,\u201d $179 million for the State Department to \u201cfund green energy programs in Africa,\u201d and $200,000 to teach \u201cFrance about U.S. culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ighaworth\"> @ighaworth<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"> member<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released his 2021 \u201cFestivus\u201d Report, which detailed a total of $52,598,515,585 in government waste. Paul is chairman of the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight (ETSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and is on the Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC). This marks Dr. Paul\u2019s and the subcommittee\u2019s seventh edition of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1141968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}